mhaze,
>" He never claimed the dams would never fill again"
>That's true. Equally he never said they would fill again.

He may not have expressly said it, but he certainly implied it, including in the quote I paraphrased before (sorry, I still can’t find a link to the original yet) where he acknowledged the possibility of freak weather events (as I hope you agree the present situation is an example of) as well as the possibility that the modelling was wrong.

> And for years after those statements, others, both friend and foe, interpreted it to mean that he thought the dams
>and rivers would never fill. And nowhere, at no time, in those years, did Flannery step in to set the record straight.
Maybe a few people who just read the headlines and skip the detailed reports came to that conclusion, but how could he set the record straight when they wouldn’t read or watch what he said?

>He let the statement stand and only after it became utterly untenable did he then start putting out his defence.
The attacks came after the drought broke. Do you expect him to respond to them before they’re made?

>Even in the years when state governments around the country were spending (wasting really)
>billions on useless desal plants based partly on these false claims that the dams weren't gunna fill…

Tim Flannery said they might not fill before they ran dry. How utterly idiotic are the people who misinterpreted that claim as “they’ll definitely NEVER EVER fill"?

And considering what was at stake, and the fact that we didn’t know whether the dams would fill before they ran dry, it would have been stupid to fail to invest in desal. It’s far from useless, as we’ll have more long droughts in the future.

ALTRAV,

Two LNP MPs walking through the corridors in Parliament.

First MP says 'Hey mate, got any photos of your wife in the nude?"

Second MP looks up astonished, lost for words, not knowing how to respond.

First MP says "Wanna buy some?"

Mr O, now that's the kind of banter I foster.
A little levity is good for everyone, not just the soul.
Laughter and merriment are one of the basics and staples of a happy life/environment.
I am forever saddened by my inability to remember so many things of my past, and jokes in particular.
I fear that humour and comedy will fall victim to the onslaught of this insidious disease called Political Correctness, and we shall suffer emotionally with the threat of it's negativity, unless we ignore the PC language and carry on "happily".

The worst thing to happen to our environment is the environmental movement itself. A record breaking flood in NSW. No new dams for 30 years, and the second raising of the Warragamba dam wall stopped by this lunatic minority, who went whining to the UN and got those criminals involved. Too bad for those people washed out of their homes. What a useless, gutless mob both both the Coalition and Labor are, allowing the 10% Green arse-end wag the dog.

Aiden, it is not just the solar cycle there are two other cycles involved,
which is why they are working with fourier transforms to
try and forecast the peaks and nulls. So far they believe the peak was
in the late 1990s. From just my amateur observation of history the
cycle seems vary between 600 years and 1000 years very roughly.
It is not until the 19th century that temperatures readings were made.

Some years ago I attended a meeting of the Local Emergency Management Committee.
At that meeting we given a talk by a NSW Govt Dept about the downstream
area of Warragamba Dam. This area South of Penrith is where the
Nepean River runs from the dam.
It was explained that the area in the event of a rare rain event would
be very badly flooded to the extent that many houses would be 10
metres under water.
A telephone ring everyone system was setup to call every phone in the
area with a flood warning. A road out of the area towards Blacktown
was raised above flood level to enable quick evacuation.
The 100 year flood almost happened shortly after that talk, but it
appears it might be here now.
I really do not understand why housing was allowed in the area of
a known major flood risk.